


ain't it unfortunate

by grundlemuncher



Category: Deltarune (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, No Romance, What's Real?, what's happening?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 01:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17235017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grundlemuncher/pseuds/grundlemuncher
Summary: kris has memories they shouldn't have(sometimes they think the other monsters do, too)





	ain't it unfortunate

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Так уж не сложилось](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18147827) by [Shauney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shauney/pseuds/Shauney)



You miss your brother.

Your brother used to tell you that the angel and devil on your shoulders were normal. He had them too. They might have been different - yours were two kids, one in green and one in purple. You couldn’t tell them apart, but your brother could, when they leaked into your actions and words and smile.

Your brother understood, when he wasn’t being a dick. In the night, when the sunlight wasn’t glinting off his many medals and trophies and it was just you two in the dark. He’d tell you why he hated dad’s yellow flowers. He’d tell you why he fought so hard to keep your parents together (even though you never really got it).

When you were kids, you understood: “hated those yellow flowers” to mean “put them in the teapot.” Mom caught you. Mom always catches you (except that time she didn’t).

You miss your brother.

* * *

Asriel huffs his warm breath onto the window pane, and you watch as he draws with his fingers while you inhale your hot chocolate. He draws snowflakes, and snowmen, and a skeleton.

“That’s my best friend.” He tells you with a wink, pointing at the tall skeletal monster already fading on the window frame.

You don’t know why, but you say: Mine too.

Asriel doesn’t look angry, or confused, or upset. He gets thoughtful for a moment, chewing on his lips, and then he nods.

“Yeah.”

* * *

You have one of your nightmares again. Mom’s there, in a beautiful gown you know you’ve never seen her wear (you’ve gone through her closet to check). There are burns on your arms and your chest, licking up to squeeze around your neck, and she’s crying. Something deep and primal in you is reaching for the place at your back where you used to hide the kitchen knife under your belt for the summer before Asriel left for college. Until Dad caught sight of it when you were bent over helping in his garden and your shirt lifted up. He took it, but promised not to tell Mom about it.

It’s not there, but then Mom is, and she’s crying and ushering you through a huge purple door. Just before it slams shut, you hear: “Please don’t come back.”

The sound of the door locking behind you jolts you awake, and you’re crying out for Asriel on the other side of your empty room until _your_ Mom rushes in, scoops you into her arms like you’re ten-years-old again. She rocks you in your bed as you recount what you can through hiccups and sobs, and then she sighs, smiles, and shakes her head.

Mom says: “You can always come home.”

And you don’t know if thats a reassurance or a _threat_.

* * *

You LOVE your dad. Who wouldn’t LOVE their dad?

You don’t sleep over at dad’s. He seems to make as many excuses as you.

Asriel hates your dad. Asriel stopped speaking to dad long long before mom did.

You don’t really _get_ it. He tries hard. You try hard, too. There’s so much that no one is telling you.

That’s the part that makes you furious.

* * *

You moved into Ms. Alphys homeroom three years ago. In another year you’ll have to figure out where to go next - most of the other kids in your class are talking about moving away to college, emboldened by your brother. Noelle is gonna stick around to stay with her Dad, who you haven’t visited in a while. The stench of disinfectant and fresh lemons permeates the hospital, and lately every time you go to play piano there, your fingers don’t quite feel like your own. One too many missed notes sent you into a panic last month, and you started hyperventilating until you could get outside and force yourself to stop thinking about the time Dad spent weeks there because of your little prank.

MK is already excitedly talking about entering the police force to train under Officer Undyne. You’re not sure what he’ll be able to do, seeing as your town is painfully quiet and he can’t very well direct traffic with no arms. _~~You could make it much, much more quiet~~_

You don’t know what you’re gonna do. This town feels like the only thing that’s real, most days - like if you step outside of the borders you’ll break some unseen barrier and never be able to come back. The thought makes you call your brother after school. As always, it goes to voicemail.

Who knows what Susie is gonna do. You honestly sort of forget she exists, until the day Ms. Alphys sends you out to get chalk with her. And after that, you’re not so focused on school anymore. You’re not so _you_ , at all.

* * *

You know something is wrong that morning, when _you?_ take the coveted little ball of junk you’ve been accumulating in your pocket for several months and flush it down the toilet before going to join Mom on her ride to school.

You get this way sometimes. _Kris_ gets this way sometimes. Like one of the little kids on their shoulders has switched from co-pilot to pilot.

Asriel always helped make it stop. He’d get angry when his little brother wouldn’t speak to him for hours on end, and when Mom or Dad weren’t looking, he’d shove Kris, or punch Kris, or threaten them with his fiery magic until they’d snap out of it and fight back. Asriel would tell Mom they were just wrestling, but then he’d smile, and Kris would be Kris again.

Asriel isn’t here this time.

Kris doesn’t even flinch when Susie holds them up against the wall of lockers. They won’t flinch at the many things that come.

* * *

You remember it later, like this.

The world is ending, and someone has to do something about it.

 ~~Suzy~~  Susie is there, and you can follow her wake of destruction right to her. _She’s got a good swing but she doesn’t know how to finish them off_

Ralsei is nice but he isn’t your brother. _Flowey is nice but he isn’t your brother_. You’re nice right now but you a _ren’t you ~~r brother-r-r-r-rr-rr~~_

There’s a king killing kids- no, but he’s _about_ to kill his own kid, and there’s no _Mercy_ when there should be.

_You cry out into the darkness._

And somebody came.

Everybody came.

* * *

Afterwards, you run straight home, go to bed, and sleep until the sun sets before you rip your soul out of your chest.

* * *

Asriel cries on the night your parents break up.

He tells you he tried so hard. He tells you he did everything right this time. He tells you he misses the Underground.

He tells you he won’t let you die. You don’t understand. He tells you he’s moving away. He tells you to go to sleep, and you do, and you don’t tell him that you remember everything when **RESET** it’s morning.

You have a new secret!

* * *

Darkners _bleed_. You’ve never seen anyone else besides yourself bleed.

* * *

There are skeletons that have just moved to town, your mother tells you excitedly. In a morbid sort of way, you will have the most in common with them - these living, breathing endoskeletons of yourself - _it’s you!_ without all the meat parts. That’s what everyone means when they smile strangely at you at the town picnic. You don’t smile back.

You meet Sans over a pile of gelatin with lemons. You lay eyes on him and the words that burst from your mouth are: Great to see you again.

Sans smiles, and he smiles and he smiles and he smiles and he smiles and he smiles- and because people are watching, he says: “yeah. glad to see you’re up and walking again.”

You’re walking through the crumpled fall leaves and they are snow beneath your feet, crunching, and there’s dust- no- pollen, on your hands and you’re dropping your plate and sneezing and sneezing.

“hey kid, you okay?”

No one follows you when you run.

* * *

There was someone in the basement of the castle. You know this because you’ve still got the key to his cell.

Seam began telling you, Ralsei and Susie about him when you asked. His story turned dark, darker y **et darker** , but you went looking for the parts of the key anyway. When it was fixed, the smith told you he only fixed it for you to never use.

You’d found yourself thinking that at the top of the basement stairs, a haunting melody drifting up to you with a tune you could have sworn you’d heard before- and you pocketed the key. Turned back into the elevator before the shadows could reach with their many, hollow hands around your ankles.

Seam had a darkness in his lonely eye, and even though Sans is a skeleton, you can see it in his, too. You turn the key over again and again in your hands and wonder if he knows about something that’s bigger than this town, than your brother, than you.

* * *

You dream about dying.

You dream about Asriel dying.

Sometimes you see a monster about town - Officer Undyne, Ms. Alphys, Dad, Mom - and your heart hurts so much you wish it would just shatter into a thousand red shards like it was supposed to.

This town is all you’ve ever known and it feels _wrong_.

And it feels like your fault.

* * *

You know more than the monsters around you, and it hurts.

* * *

"whatcha doin out here?”

You’re on the bench beside the graveyard and Sans sits himself down next to you like he forgot all about the quiche he left under his slippered feet **[last year] [last reset] [another life ago]** and you smile. His smile dims, like he doesn’t like it.

There’s something in the woods.

Sans doesn’t like that either. He **[lies] [reaches for you] [makes a bad pun]** and you smile cause he seems to have forgotten how.

You haven’t forgotten. You can’t forget.

“what do you mean you can’t forget?”

You’re not Kris.

Tomorrow you don’t see Sans at all, and then tomorrow

**RESETS**

is last Monday, and you’ll meet Sans all over again.

Sans is boring. You’d try out his brother, but if there’s one thing that’s always niggling at the back of your skull, it’s not to get between Sans and his brother.

You get it. You miss your brother, too.

**Author's Note:**

> happy new year, thanks deltarune <3
> 
> come talk to me on twitter! @chupacawha


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